


The Other Warden

by Hezjena2023



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alistair is a big cup of depresso, Bethany is sugar sweet, Calling reference, Chanter's Board Quests, Despite the bleakness of the worldstate, Drunk!Alistair world state, F/M, Happy Ending, If they can both be in the Hanged Man at the same time, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Joining reference, POV Alternating, Silver!Verse, They can both fall in love dangit, This should be a mostly happy story, Warden!Bethany, eventual Warden!Bethany, minor Grey Warden headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28713039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hezjena2023/pseuds/Hezjena2023
Summary: Alistair turned, collided with someone. His wrist hurt, stung like he’d been electrocuted, and he cradled his hand to his chest. But from the outraged cry in front of him, he knew he had to get out of the Hanged Man before he got punched for spilling the drink down whoever it was, or worse forced to spend the last of his coin on replacing the ale. There was a curse in his mouth that he swallowed down as he realised that the person he’d walked into was a lady.Maker, she was pretty.***If Alistair and Bethany can meet in the Hanged Man… why couldn’t they meet and fall in love?
Relationships: Alistair/Bethany Hawke
Comments: 61
Kudos: 15





	1. Wet Frock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Viscariafields](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viscariafields/gifts).



> DAI Codex - 
> 
> If Alistair was exiled: Rumored to be King Maric of Ferelden's bastard son, there was a moment during the recent fifth blight where Alistair could have ascended to the throne. Instead, the throne was given to Queen Anora, daughter of the traitorous Teyrn Loghain-the very man responsible for the death of almost every Grey Warden in Ferelden at the infamous Battle of Ostagar. Disgusted, Alistair abandoned the Grey Wardens, and for years lived in disgraced exile in the Free Marches. Several years ago, Alistair was retrieved from his exile, sobered up, and eventually re-admitted to the order...

The Hanged Man was a dingy sort of place, the wooden boards of the floor were permanently sticky with spilt drinks that noone has ever quite gotten around to mopping up. However, it was warm, dry and in the little corner tucked away from the bar, the wooden bench that Alistair was sat on comfortable enough that he felt his eyelids getting heavy. 

He was on his own, so he didn’t even have to worry about appearing rude but, it was still probably best not to sleep in the Tavern, without paying for a room. That was asking to get kicked out, and the Hanged Man had the cheapest drinks in Kirkwall. So regretfully he blinked his eyes open, shifting to try to keep upright and tapped his fingers against the metal tankard filled with water-down ale. 

The ale was horrible, but it warmed him up and kept his head just the right side of fuzzy, it drowned that pebble of resentment that lived somewhere deep in his stomach. He’d heard the news a couple years before that the Blight was over, so just as he’d expected, they hadn’t needed him. 

_No one needed him._

He didn’t even know if Tabris was still alive, and as he drained his second tankard of weak ale, he found didn’t much care. 

When he’d first stepped off the boat, he had spotted the Chantry from the Harbour. It was always the best place to go to see if anyone needed a goose returning, a letter delivering or some other menial task that paid a pittance. He’d spent the day clearing through the jobs on the Chanter’s Board. It was nice to feel needed. But now he was drinking his kindness, in the little booth out the way, claimed before the tavern got too full. And he only felt a pinch guilty that he’d taken a table for six when there was only the one of him. But he hoped his third ale might drown that niggle of guilt nicely. 

Alistair stretched his neck, moving his head from side to side. Then felt a sharp sinking feeling deep between his stomach and his back. Groaning, he looked around sharply, the sudden spark of adrenaline burning away his weariness. Alistair knew the sensation too well - _darkspawn._ Or at least the tainted blood of one. 

It was the same itch he’d come to believe was a part of his nature when he’d travelled with Tabris, as permanent as his eyes or his armour, or his boots without holes in. He sighed, shifted his feet under the table and regretted stepping in that puddle a couple hours back. His mood was as sour as the vinegary swill that Corff had tried to pass off as Antivan wine. 

With a wary glance towards the door he decided that if the Wardens wanted him back, they could beg. He wouldn’t do it for anything less than a personal apology from Kallie Tabris. But when the tavern swung open, none of them looked like Wardens. It was a small group stumbled in from the downpour, two women and two men. 

Except one of them. One of the men, blond with a hood pulled down over his forehead against the cold, drew up so short that one of the women almost walked right into him. The blond’s face was blanched, and his eyes a little wide as he scanned the room, his gaze coming to stop directly on Alistair. His mouth moved in a conversation exchanged between the little group, but they were all too far away for Alistair to make anything out. 

Alistair turned on the wooden bench and squeezed his eyes shut tight. _Maker._ Maybe if he didn’t look at them, they’d go away. _He could run away from them, he was rather good at running away from Wardens,_ the little voice in his mind told him. 

When he plucked up his courage to peek his left eye open, the blond was gone, but the group of three were settling into a table by the fireplace, peeling off cloaks and coats and - Andraste’s flaming sword was that Captain Isabela? The last time he’d seen her, she’d taken the rest of his traveling party to her ship for a debauched evening and left him stewing by himself in a dodgy little inn in Denerim. 

Grimacing he remembered that was the night he’d had his runic worry-coin pickpocketed right out of his trouser leg. Nursing his annoyance, he didn’t notice the blond man was now sliding onto the bench beside him. 

Alistair jolted up with alarm when the man put down a mostly empty bottle of an amber liquid between them. 

“So, are you here to send me back?” The blond man enquired politely, although his lips were pursed together tightly and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Send you back?” Alistair spluttered, reaching for the hilt of the cheap shortsword he’d picked up at a market, he didn’t remember where, somewhere along the Storm Coast in his blurry haste to just get away from Tabris. He found the cheap iron pommel and clutched it tightly in his hand. 

The blond narrowed his eyes, “to Amaranthine.” 

“No, I’m not a-” he couldn’t finish the sentence. From the way that his intestines were currently wrapped in knots was proof enough that he wasn’t not a Grey Warden. 

“Neither am I.” The other Warden rather obviously lied, then he smiled just a little, which was more alarming than anything else he’d done if Alistair was honest. The smile turned into a bearing of his teeth as he readjusted, inhaling hard as though the wooden bench he was sitting on was giving him cramp. “I’m Anders.” 

“Anders?” Alistair blinked at him, it was without a doubt a fake name. But he did take his hand off his sword.

“Yes.”

“Right, I’m Alistair.” He felt awkward saying his own name, even worse when that caused Anders’ expression to change to unconcealed curiosity. 

_“_ Maker’s Breath. _You’re_ Alistair? _The Alistair?”_ Anders repeated, surprised and then shook his head as though he’d heard what he’d just said and realised the ridiculousness of the situation. He spat out something akin to a laugh. “Sorry, Tabris used to talk about you, or mutter darkly about you is more accurate.”

Alistair grunted, he needed to change his name. Downing his ale, he decided he was going to leave, as he heavily set the tankard down against the splintering wood of the table. Without a thought of where he was going to go, just fueled by a distinct need to get away; away from the mention of Kallie Tabris and away from the itch below his stomach that warned him, likewise, of friends and foes. 

On his feet, Alistair glanced at the bench and decided it would be more effort than it was worth to tuck it in, turned, collided with someone. His wrist hurt, stung like he’d been electrocuted, and he cradled his hand to his chest. But from the outraged cry in front of him, he knew he had to get out of there before he got punched for spilling the drink down whoever it was, or worse forced to spend the last of his coin on replacing the beverage. There was a curse in his mouth that he swallowed down as he realised the person he’d walked into was a lady. 

_Maker, she was pretty._

Pretty enough that it stopped him right in his tracks, which he tried not to think about. 

“He bothering you?” Demanded a bearded man, who was built like a wild druffalo, wearing a tattered leather breastplate and he wasn’t even trying to disguise the greatsword stuck on his back, there was even a smear of blood across his nose. He looked at the lady and Alistair thought he must be one of the Hanged Men’s hired guards. 

_He was going to get punched._

“No, no,” she reassured briskly, not fully looking at the bearded man, “it was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She had an embarrassed wine-stain across her cheeks, that was mostly hidden by softly curled black hair. 

That was enough for the bearded man, who nodded at Alistair once, as though he’d already forgotten why he’d stopped, and he went to sit opposite Anders on the bench where Alistair had been minutes earlier. 

“Sorry about that,” the lady sighed, completely flushed, “my brother can be a bit-” she flapped her hand looking for a word and not finding it. But she glanced down and remembered that she had sloshed her drink down herself and with an ‘oh no,’ she began trying to pat dry the front of her cotton tunic with a red kerchief that had been about her neck moments earlier. Pressing her loose hair back behind one of her ears as she did so. 

Alistair didn’t think that she was doing a very good job of it, but didn’t have an extra handkerchief to offer her. And the lady just seemed to be spreading the stain around without mopping any of the ale up, he could pick out the dark outline of her underthings… “um.” He realised with a horrible jolt that he had been staring. With shame pricking like hot pin-pricks up the back of his neck, he fixed his eyes very pointedly on an ugly banner bearing the stylistic design of Kirkwall. 

The banner had clearly been hung to cover some particularly lewd graffiti that had been carved into the plaster, uncovered by the banner was a foot and ankle poking out, and pointing up towards the rafter. Which was not helping his imagination in the slightest, so he looked around for something else to focus on and found Captain Isabela leant up against a different bench, smirking at him. 

Isabela raised an eyebrow at Alistair, “I know you, don’t I? Where do I know you from?” She narrowed her eyes, drawing her gaze across his shoulders, down his stomach, and then back up to his face, “have we… _sailed_ together before?” 

Startled, the lady stopped dabbing at her front and looked up at Alistair. If anything the blush across her cheek got more intense, her lips pursed together. 

“No, no, we haven’t.” Alistair blinked horrified at Isabela, that she’d just come right out and ask him that. “In any sense. Captain,” he added on the end, to prove that they did in fact know each other, but it had the opposite effect of pleasing Isabela to no end. 

A happy grin spread right across Captain Isabela’s face, lighting up her whole expression. She swayed a little on the spot in a manner that was rather alluring. Or would have been, if he hadn’t seen her do the exact same thing a few years before in a Tavern much like this on the other side of the Waking Sea. It just brought up memories of his friends that he had walked away from.

Isabela flashed her sharp teeth and asked, “manners will get you anywhere. Do you want to?”

Shaking his palms out in front of him, Alistair shook his head, “no, thank you, kind offer, but no.” _Brilliantly handled,_ he congratulated himself silently _._ It was very much time for him to leave, but his feet weren’t obeying him, which was all in all rather annoying. It was probably the effect of too much watered-down ale and had absolutely nothing to do with the lady in a damp dress watching him curiously. 

Isabela shrugged, muttered something a little like ‘your loss.’ Then audibly she added, “join us? hmm?” Isabela offered, tilting her head towards the table that had been his, but that this group had now claimed as their territory. 

“I, um,” he looked at the lady intent on telling her his name, maybe finding hers out. Her eyes black as obsidian, so dark that her pupil was indistinguishable from her iris. It was a look that rendered him a fool, as he heard somewhere far away, but unmistakably his own voice, he asked her, “would you like me to buy you another?”

She nodded at him, giving him a grateful smile. “I’m Bethany.”

“Alistair.”

Resting his elbows on the sticky bar, he flagged Corff down, as he was waiting he absently rubbed at the slightly raised patch on the back of his hand that felt like a burn. The shock that he’d gotten when he bumped into Bethany. 

He found himself with a nostalgic smile on his face as he remembered one time he’d been perfectly content daydreaming about something or other, and hadn’t noticed Morrigan was talking to him. Absent-mindedly he’d managed to annoy her so much that she’d send a bolt of mana at him. It had welted in just the same way, and -

\- his hands stilled and he looked back to the lady across the crowded bar. 

_Bethany was a mage. Or more accurately, she was an apostate._

Alistair didn’t wait for Corff to come back. He had no idea what to do with that knowledge so he finally gave into the nagging foreboding that he’d been ignoring since they’d stumbled into the Hanged Man. Without saying goodbye, he stood up and ran quite literally away from his problems.


	2. Chasing the Wild Goose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany helps Alistair complete a quest for the Chanter's Board, quite by accident.

The weather in the city had turned in the last week, it was a creeping cold that permeated through layers of wool and cotton, no matter how Bethany tried to stave it off. Her hands were squeezed into fists in her pockets, as she tried not to shiver. It was colder up here in Hightown, the wind whistled through the cracks in the fancy buildings and pulled and the banners adorning the chantry.

As though to put the weather in its place, her brother was in a foul mood that matched the inclement weather. That morning they’d lost Anders from their usual party to a flu that he’d picked up in his Clinic, and they had begrudgingly left him to rest with a grumbled command to have some soup. 

Instead they’d picked up Varric, along with Isabela, from the Hanged Man. Despite their best intentions, Varric and her brother just didn’t get on. And now Varric had a scowl carved so deep into his forehead, that Bethany was half convinced the wind had changed and it was set like that. She wondered faintly if Varric regretted inviting them on the Deep Roads expedition, it had been months since Varric had laid out his proposition and they still had not gathered the coin required. They had almost collected the gold, when her brother splurged on a new shiny chestplate, ‘an investment’ he called it. 

While Isabela called it ‘peacocking, for a certain mage in a dreary clinic.’ 

Well, Bethany didn’t really care what the chestplate was, so long as it kept the arrows off and the blows away from him. She couldn’t lose another grumpy brother, and she was determined their run of bad luck was over. Despite the nagging thought that the longer they waited to go on their expedition, the more likely they were to run into darkspawn.

She still had dreams about that orge outside of Lothering. How it had plucked up Carver like a doll and broken him. 

Bethany shivered again, and looked up at the grey skies. It might snow. It was cold enough, even with the salty sea breeze. She hadn’t seen snow since Ferelden. 

She wrapped her arms around her chest, she wouldn’t even be so cold if they’d done anything today. But, after climbing their way to Hightown, they’d just stood in front of the Chanter’s Board. This morning there were extremely slim pickings. All that was left were a handful of torn scraps of paper caught in the nails that had been used to hammer down the calls for help. It was obvious to her that someone else had got to first. But more requests for help were not going to appear if they stood there and watched the Board. At least that had always been true in Lothering. 

“Hawke, I’m going back before I get frostbite.” Varric called, interrupting the peace and stillness of the square in front of the Chantry. 

Bethany saw Isabela look up hopefully, but she got in before the pirate, “I’ll walk you back!” She volunteered so forcefully that her voice echoed around the little square and two pigeons that had been waddling on the Chantry steps flew up, startled into the air. Feeling her cheeks heat, she cleared her throat and gave her brother a saccharine smile. 

Matthias Hawke gave his sister a long back and then nodded, once. “Straight back to Gamlen’s.” He grunted before turning back to the Chanter’s Board. 

The utter betrayal was painted across Isabela's face. Her bottom lip pouted out in silent outrage at being left behind.

“You know I don’t actually need a chaperone, Sunshine?” Varric muttered as they left the square together. 

“Oh, I know,” Bethany agreed. “I won’t come with you, and you’ll pretend you didn’t see me taking the long way back through the market.” 

Varric didn’t look convinced, even gave her a token protest. “I shouldn’t leave you by yourself.”

“I’ll be fine.” She insisted, then smiled a pinch too sweetly, “I’ve already got one over protective older brother, Varric.” 

His eyes narrowed, “and what do you think he’ll do to me if anything happens to you?” 

Bethany huffed, “I just wanted to walk around the market, if I hear any templars clanging towards me, I’ll run for it.” And then she felt guilty the moment she’d said it, even more so when she saw his face drop. 

Varric threw up his hands in defeat, “well, don’t let me stop you.” 

The market was never quite like how Bethany thought it should be. 

In fact, nothing in Kirkwall was ever quite right. She’d walked through the streets enough as a child, hanging off every word of her mother’s stories, imagined and reimagined every detail. Had practically tasted the fresh pies sold on the corner when her father told his favourite joke. But Hightown wasn’t at all like she’d pictured from her parents’ stories. The real details fought to overwrite the imagined ones, but so far it hadn’t been a perfect replacement. 

Her memories were a palimpsest, to be washed clean and replaced. But, in the right light, she could still read what had been written before. She knew she was being silly, to be nostalgic for a place that didn’t exist. And it didn’t make the City bad, just… different. 

It was a quiet morning, far too cold for the noble resistances to have strayed out away from their roaring fireplaces and cups of hot cocoa. There must have been no more than three dozen people milling around, including market venders that tried to eek out a living underneath market-stall tarps that were battered noisily by the winds coming off the Waking Sea. 

A small group of noble women gossiped behind fur-lined gloved hands, near a red covered stall selling some of the ugliest hats that Bethany had ever had the pleasure of seeing. There was a sluggish-green-yellow looking thing, that one of the ladies was admiring, with an oversized selection of rainbow feathers sticking out of the top as though that was the crowning glory and not a gaudy and ostentatious display. 

Without any warning the women scattered, like a cat had jumped among pigeons. And for a single solitary moment, Bethany thought her imagination had forced itself onto the real world and that the bird from which the feathers had been taken was coming back for revenge. 

A large goose, with a wingspan at least Varric’s height came tearing down through the market, wings flapping and honking and hissing in distress - which was only matched in pitch by one of the lady’s shrieks of terror. The ugly chartreuse hat spiralled into the air and landed in a muddy puddle that had been caught by rainfall in uneven dip in the grey granite pavement. It was going to do itself some damage or worse.

Without really thinking about it, Bethany crouched wrapping a calming charm across her fingers, and caught the goose right around the middle and pulled it towards her. She cooed at it soothingly and flinched back as it tried to bite her with its orange beak. The calming charm began to take effect and the mottled brown goose began to relax. Its legs were still kicking a little in protest, but it wasn’t trying to bite her anymore. It was a heavy thing, larger than the geese they’d had in Lothering. 

As Bethany stood, she realised that she had a goose she didn’t know what to do with, and the three gossiping ladies were talking openly about her. She felt her soul leave her body, when she heard one of them describe what they’d just see as, ‘like magic.’ She should never have come here, should never have left Varric or her brother.

And now she couldn’t just drop the goose and walk away. 

“You caught it!” A man called, huffing and extremely out of breath. He bent at the waist trying to catch it, his hands on his knees, panting loudly like he’d just run the whole way up the stairs from Lowtown to Hightown twice. Bethany thought he might pass out. But he didn’t, he righted and blinked at her, his mouth dropping comically open. Then he swallowed hard and didn’t quite meet her eyes, “oh, it’s you.” 

Bethany wasn’t sure what to reply to that, but she remembered him. 

She’d seen Alistair twice since he had ran away from buying her a drink. Once at the Harbour, where he’d been sat eating lunch with his legs over the dock, looking peaceful. He hadn’t known she was there, and she hadn’t wanted to disturb him. And the other time, when he’d walked into the Hanged Man, eyes drawn to their table as her brother had roared after Isabela had told a filthy joke and Bethany had buried the disappointment when Alistair had turned right on his heel in the doorway. 

“How did you catch him?” Alistair asked, looking only a pinch impressed. 

With a glance towards the gossiping women, Bethany said, “I grew up near a farm.” It wasn’t a lie. It really wasn’t. There _were_ farms near Lothering. But it seemed enough for the women. In her arms, the goose’s legs kicked, happily waddling in the air. And she noticed that the goose had a small leather collar around its neck, studded with royal blue gemstones. 

“Right, well, um.” Alistair started nervously, “if I can just take the goose, I’ll be-”

As he reached for it, Bethany was distracted for just a moment - the calming spell on her fingers spluttered, the goose tried to flap, wings digging into Bethany’s best, tried to bite Alistair on the hand and hissed at him. 

“- no, no, it’s fine. You carry him.” Alistair corrected, flinching back hard enough that he had to take a step back only barely missing standing on the ugly green hat. He glanced down at the hat, and then looked back at her. His eyes met her and darted away quickly again. “That is, if you don’t mind?” 

Bethany worried her lip, glancing back behind her as though half expecting someone to come and tell her off for even considering it. She squeezed her eyes shut, hearing the lecture Matthias would give her when he realised she hadn’t walked back with Varric and shut herself back into the small room that she shared with their mother in her uncle’s house. Deciding that sod it, she was feeling brave today, she opened her eyes -

Alistair was rifling through a collection of yellowed parchment notes, the tops of each of them torn. He found one, “please return Gertrude to-”

“It’s you.” She hissed. 

He flinched up in alarm, shifting in place a little uncomfortably. “Huh?” 

“You’re the one that’s been taking all of the Chanter’s Board notices?” Bethany laughed, hugging Gertrude a little closer to her chest. 

“I didn’t realise anyone else was doing them.” He murmured, sheepishly, and laughed nervously. 

“Because you took them all,” she teased. 

He opened his mouth twice, but without anything to say to his defence, he just smiled guilty at her. He didn’t look away from a moment, his smile, becoming genuinely warm. Then as though starling himself, he looked back down at the little scrap of paper in his hand, examining it intently, “it’s just across the Courtyard, I’d be grateful for your assistance.” 

And it really was just across the marketplace, up some steps to a grand row of three-story apartment blocks that overlooked the market and beyond the city and the Waking Sea. Bethany trailed a few steps behind, carrying the goose in her arms, reworking the calming charms so that Gertrude would not be soporific when she put the goose down and her magic wouldn’t be discovered. 

Alistair found the correct door and knocked, as he waited, he fidgeted, mussed his fingers through his hair, giving it a perpetually messy look with pieces at the front sticking up, that she felt the urge to smooth out. He glanced at Bethany and gave her a small smile.

It was a good smile, Bethany decided. Nice lips, strong jaw, kind eyes. With a little twist under her ribs, she realised he was rather handsome. But she didn’t have any longer to ponder this revelation as the door swung upon.

“Gertrude!” An elderly woman crowed. “You found her!” She spoke with a thick Antivan accent, her hair piled on her head in crushed ringlets and she was wearing a thick layer of white powder on her face that ended abruptly at her neck. Gertrude’s owner pulled out a small handful of berries that she presented to the goose, who ate them out of her hand, staining her hand with purpley juice. Then she swept back to allow Bethany to step inside the atrium. “Put her in here will you, dearie.” 

The walls of the corridor were painted pastel pink and orange stripes. On every surface there was a different carved stone cameos of geese. And there seemed no order to them as far as Bethany could tell, but she dutifully placed Gertrude down gently. The goose ruffled its wings, let out a little screech and peeked at her owner’s fluffy slipper. Then seemed to get bored of this endeavour and settled a little further away to groom.

The Antivan woman clutched Bethany’s hand and pressed a blue satin coin purse into her hands. It was heavy in Bethany’s hands and she made some sounds to protest that it was too much, but the woman clucked at her, “such a helpful girl.” Then shooed her back out of her hallway and a moment later she found the door slammed alarmingly loudly in her face. 

It took a moment for Bethany to recover her wits, but when she did, she turned back to Alistair offering the purse, “this is yours.” 

He looked at the satin purse in her outstretched hand, frowning but didn’t take it. “Keep it,” he whispered then looked up at her, “and apology for taking all the Chanter’s requests.” 

Bethany was already shaking her head, and she stepped over to a large stone balustrade that overlooked the market, and used it as a platform to divide up the coinage. “There’s gold in here,” she murmured. The coins were not divisible so she gave him the larger half, and slipped hers into her pocket before he could count up what she’d done. What she had taken was easily enough to fund her brother’s expedition, with change to spare.

Gratefully Alistair took the offered half, and started, “do you want, what I mean is, would you like to do another request?” He was already pulling the rest of the scraps of paper out to sort through them. 

She stared at them longingly, she did. She shivered, as a fresh roar of wind blew through the marketplace, setting the stall-covering to flap and snap. And like waking up from a daydream she suddenly remembered just how cold it was in the marketplace in Hightown. Reluctantly she said, “I’d better get home.”

It took him a moment to realise what she’d said, then his head snapped up to her. Brown eyes meeting hers. Alistair didn’t hide any of his emotions, and his expressions flickered through disappointment, protestation and finally reluctant acceptance. Then something else, carefully he asked, “may I walk you home?” 

Bethany laughed, and answered, “it’s in Lowtown.” Her words came out more as a question. 

“I don’t mind.” 

“I’d like that.” 

The weather was much warmer in Lowtown, protected from the winds that whistled over the Waking Sea. The tightly packed houses kept the wind from whistling through in the same way as it did in Hightown. They walked together, they talked about Ferelden, that Alistair had lived in Redcliffe and she in Lothering, that they had almost been in the same place half a hundred times, but that it had taken them to get to Kirkwall to meet. The conversation made Bethany feel homesick, but there was something sweet and comforting to know that she wasn’t alone in missing Ferelden, in the determination to make Kirkwall her home. 

As they wove their way through Lowtown, Bethany stopped at the little stall that sold unidentifiable chunks of meat on sticks, all dipped in a sticky, spicy sauce. Spending a few of the coppers that they’d earnt from the return of the goose. They ate them as they walked, until, quite unexpectedly it began to snow. Delicate flakes falling down from the fluffy white skies. It didn't settle, but it was beautiful.

Bethany looked at the little alleyway, coming off an unevenly cobbled side street, feeling an odd twist of disappointment settle in the pit of her stomach - or maybe it was the unidentifiable meat. The path cut through two building leaning together to create an architecturally unstable archway. And she said regretfully, “my Uncle’s is down here.” 

She quite expected him to leave her there, his mission to return her home technically completed. But, he did not leave, just hung back for a moment, then took the path, stepping over a puddle and darting around an abandoned boot. If Alistair noticed the general filthiness of alley at all, he didn’t mention it. Nor did he say a word about the cracked plasterwork on the front of Gamlen’s house, or even about the flaking paintwork on the wooden door. He just hung by her and walked with her, up the steps and stopped by the front door.

Inside her brother’s mabari barked twice to announce her arrival. 

They both paused, as though quite unable to say goodbye. Then Alistair stepped a little close to her and took her hand, very seriously in his and very gently pressing a kiss to the back of her hand, as he pulled back he said, “thank you, Bethany, for your assistance today. And your kindness.”

It made Bethany’s heart flutter, and her breath catch in her throat. She wondered if she was meant to kiss him? That was foolishness, of course, and she rejected the thought. She couldn't just kiss every Ferelden that spoke to her, that reminded her of home in a way she'd never felt before in Kirkwall. And she chastised herself, they barely knew each other. But, Maker, she wanted to know everything about him. Slowly she took her hand back, smiling back shyly. She pressed a stray strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. 

When she didn't say anything, he took a step back suddenly unsure and gave her space. Quitely he asked, “may I see you again?” 

Her gaze flickered to his face, "yes." She breathed before she could think. Then her mind restarted and she reminded him, “you do still owe me that drink.” 

“Oh, yes. I do.” He grinned, there were snowflakes caught in his hair. 

“Until the next time I see you at the Hanged Man, then?” 

“Yes, until then.” He promised solemnly. 

Bethany smiled at him, caught for a moment in complete giddiness, that lasted lifetimes, but in reality was only a heartbeat or two - one reality overlaid upon the first.

And Alistair just smiled at her. But, then, he glanced up at the snow. He nodded hopefully and retreated back down the alley, from her and from her Uncle Gamlen’s house, disappearing back into the alleyway. 

Bethany watched him go, then sank back against the front door, as the snow settled around her. She pulled the hand that he had kissed to her chest and sighed happily, she tilted her head back, she liked him, so much - more than she should after just spending a few hours with someone. 

The door opened jilting her from her thoughts. “Beth? What are you doing back already?” Her mother asked her, craning her head outside the door. "Where's you brother?" Leandra asked as she closed the door.

“Oh.” Bethany gasped, that she'd been caught. And flushed, her face hot. She squeezed through the doorway to get away from her mother’s knowing gaze, the warmth of the fireplace hitting her in a wave that she hoped cover the blush she was sure was staining her cheeks, “yes, sorry, just me.” 

Leandra watched her daughter for a moment, then raised a single slim eyebrow and asked a little accusingly, “who was that?”

  
  



	3. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair learns from Isabela what happened to Bethany in the Deep Roads, and doesn't take it well.

Alistair was sat on the stool by the bar of the Hanged Man. He was nervous, and he kept fiddling with his cuff, but whatever he did, it would not lie straight. It was the fourth day that week that he had spent the early evening in the tavern on the off chance Bethany would appear - and it was only Thursday. 

The evening had faded into the night, and through one of the windows high up above the bar, Alistair thought that he should be able to see the stars, if the tavern wasn’t full of candle smoke and it wasn’t cloudy. But it was a nice thought, nonetheless. And it was late, and Bethany still hadn’t showed, he would try again tomorrow. He was hopeful, painfully so, it lived in the space beneath his ribs and he felt so good about tomorrow. 

If he was the worrying sort, it would have concerned him that he hadn’t seen Bethany in two weeks. Nor her brother, or the other not-warden Anders. And he just might have for the first time in his life, paid good money to see Captain Isabela come strolling through the doors of the Hanged Man. And for the first time since he’d arrived in Kirkwall he actually had money. Not many, but he had them regardless. The purse from the over exuberant owner of Gertrude had paid for a new pair of boots, and he still had gold coins to his name. 

He fiddled again with his cuff, thinking of Bethany. If he was more religious, he might have said she appeared like some Maker-ordained vision in the marketplace. Like some holy icon, stretching out her hand to him. And when she’d tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced up at him with such a look, he wondered if he should lie on the floor just to think about her? He glanced at the sticky floors of the Hanged Man and decided it wasn’t a good idea. 

_ There had been snowflakes caught in her soft curls.  _

The barkeep of the Hanged Man, Corff, scrubbed the counter beside him down idly and when he caught Alistiar’s eye grunted towards Alistair’s cup. “Want another?” 

“Maybe one. Wait, no. No. Thank you, I’d better not.” Alistair corrected quickly. 

Corff titled his head, his lower lip poking out in interest. He grunted a little then barked, “meeting someone?” 

“Yes.” Alistair smiled remembering Bethany, like the love-sick fool that he was. He’d never felt like this before, all bubbling anticipation and he was faintly glad that Morrigan wasn’t here to make fun of him for the butterflies that lived in his stomach. He hadn’t exactly practiced what he’d say to her when he saw her again, but he couldn’t keep himself from envisioning their next meeting. 

_ He’d take her coat, ask her how she had been, and finally buy her that drink.  _

As he smiled a lazily to himself, he was struck with the strangest sensation - something that he’d felt before. He reached into his trouser pocket for his worry coin, quite forgetting that it was long lost. Something was wrong, he couldn’t say what. But the last time he’d felt this was as Tabris had given him a look across the large room of the Landsmeet before she’d Loghain become a Warden. 

He turned towards the door, as it burst open. 

Bethany’s brother stormed in, with all the grace of a hurricane battering against the Amaranthine Coast. He strode across the room, covered in grime and what looked like black ichor still dripping down his leg. As Corff started to protest the state that Matthias Hawke was making of his floors, the man dropped a thick golden coin on the counter by Alistair and barked, “whiskey, bottle.” 

Alistair could see that it wasn’t legal tender, by any stretch of the imagination. It was dwarven coinage for a start, with a paragon’s face staring up unblinkingly at the ceiling. But, after Corff bit it, and decided that it was gold he passed across a mid-range amber bottle. A moment later, he felt the not-Warden Anders approach, even as Captain Isabela strode through the door grimly nodding to Alistair in greeting. He shifted in his seat, undoing his cuff and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. 

Despite the evidence to the contrary, he was still apprehensively hopeful. 

By him, Matthias Hawke didn’t wait for a glass, just tore the cork out of the amber bottle with his teeth and threw the liquid back into his throat. 

Isabela squeezed in front of Alistiar, “woah,” she hissed, trying to snatch the bottle from Matthias, trying and failing to stop whatever destructive cycle he was on. As the bottle was lifted far above her head, she jumped for it, and missed. She glanced to Alistiar for help, but as a quarter of the bottle had disappeared, Matthias let her take it off him. 

Matthias Hawke sat down heavily and put his head in his arms. There was a smear of blood on the side of his face, from an injury that hadn’t been treated properly. 

“What happened?” Alistair asked softly, his voice barely loud enough to carry. There was still no sign of Bethany and that nagging, ominous feeling was back. Where is she? He wanted to ask, to shake one of them until they told him, but he didn’t, just sat there stock stoney silent and waited. 

Matthias slowly straightened his spine, taking the little glass that he should have been drinking ihis whiskey from. He weighted it in his hand, clutched it so hard that it looked like it might crack, then spat, “fucking darkspawn.” He smashed it down so hard against the counter that it smashed, the sound loud enough to make Alistair flinch as shards of glass exploded out. 

The sound was loud enough to draw Corff’s attention who snapped, “get out.” Corff spat at Matthias Hawke. 

“Sorry.” Isabela supplied, smiling sweetly and trying her utmost not to get herself kicked out. 

But Matthias was already back on his feet, dropping three more of the dwarven coins on the counter and knocking a chair to the floor on his way back out. He’d taken the bottle of amber liquid with him

Anders whispered an, “I’ll go, make sure he doesn’t hurt him,” to Isabela already taking off after Matthias before she could say anything to protest. 

“You’ll have to forgive Matthias, it’s been a rough week.” Isabela offered, ignoring Corff’s pointed look that would have withered Alistair, instead she swept the broken glass into a pile and sunk herself down in the newly evacuated seat. She finally acknowledged Corff, blinking at the coinage and asking, “any of that enough to me two fingers of brandy?” 

Corff glared at her, as though deciding if to kick her out as well, but then looked back at the coins and slid them off the counter, pockinging them. He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, but did supply her with a drink and muttered gruffly, “no trouble.” 

“Oh, I’m never any trouble,” she cooed back, smiling wildly. Then Isabela looked to Alistair for a long moment, drained her own drink in one and dropped the glass lightly against the wood. 

The words to ask what had happened were back on Alistiar’s lips, but he didn’t dare voice them. 

Isabela heard his unspoken words anyway, she slunk down next to him. “We went into the Deep Roads, Varric’s bloody hair-brained idea, don’t know how I got roped in.” Isabela retold wistfully, before her tone hardened. “It was going well,” she sighed bitterly, “Hawke got enough gold to make him a Lord now,” she raised her glass in a mockery of a cheers. 

“He doesn’t look happy about it.” Alistair offered, and felt a sting of pity. He knew all too well that there wasn’t anything to celebrate about a noble title that one didn’t want. 

Isabela grimaced, “his sister was with us.” 

The words sank right to bottom of Alistiar’s stomach, “where is Bethany?” 

Isabela’s eyebrows raised as though she was surprised that he knew her name, and after a moment she only said. “Got.” 

“What?” 

“We were almost at the surface, home clear.” She whispered, her voice quieted, and her tone was quite unlike he’d ever heard her before. Her retrelling was cold, distant, as though she was repeating the story about someone else. “Then Bethany asked for a rest, she wasn’t feeling right...”

She kept talking, but Alistiar couldn’t hear it. He was aware of her speaking, her mouth was moving. There were sounds, but they were distant, indistinct, like someone screaming underwater. Even the loud sounds of the tavern faded away to background nothing. He could only hear the drumming in his ears, so loud - louder than the Archdemon had been, screaming in his dreams. “Maker.” Alistair breathed, eventually. 

“No such luck, it was-” Isabela scratched at her neck, “-darkspawn.”

“You don’t need to tell me the rest,” Alistair slumped, he closed his eyes and the darkness behind his closed lids was nothing compared to the unending dark of the Deep Roads. The disorientating dark. The unfeeling rock that resisted life, snuffed it out and didn’t even bother to remember that it had been there - he felt it in the cavern under his ribs, the hope that had been there, snuffed out all in one instance. Without looking at Captain Isabela, he told her grimly, “I know what happens next.” 

_ He was going to join her.  _

She had nothing to say in response to that. 

Opening his eyes, the light in the Hanged Man seemed too bright. The smokey, flickering candlelight. It hurt his eyes, like seeing sunshine again after a month underground. He flagged Corff down for another drink, “another, for both of us.” One last night on the surface. He never expected himself to feel so calm faced with a calling, his calling, he supposed. 

Duncan would have been proud, he was still something of a Warden. 

The bartender raised an eyebrow, “you’d better pay for that.” 

Beside him on the barstool Isabela snorted, “those coins should keep us for a month.”

“What coins?” Corff lied, crinkling his nose all up. 

As Isabela reached for a knife on her belt, Alistair stopped her. He pulled out the blue stain purse that the woman in Hightown had given Bethany. He measured out the exact number of coppers, but said, “keep them coming.” He murmured, distracted by the purse. What was left wouldn’t last long now, maybe to the end of the night if he was lucky. He thought it would be easier if he forgot her, Bethany Hawke. If he remembered, he wanted to save one coin, the last remnants of her kindness. Either way, he didn’t really care.

“You really cared about her?” Isabela balked at him. 

“Doesn’t matter now.” He told her stiffly, quickly. How could he have? He barely knew her. “Thank you for telling me, Captain.” 

Isabela took the offered drink, swilling the liquid around the glass. She was watching him curiously. If he felt anything, he’d have told her to look at someone else. Carefully, she said, “there were Wardens down there. Real ones and one of them owed Anders a favour. He bargained for them to take her.” 

“What?” That didn’t fit, like a puzzle piece smashed into a jigsaw by an angry toddler. 

“Anders said there’s a chance she’ll survive. I didn’t ask any further, it was better than the alternative. I suspect you know that.” She narrowed her eyes at him, as though her piercing gaze could see right through him, as though she’d worked out what he had planned. 

“There’s a chance.” Alistair repeated. Then stood, just as Corff placed down new drinks, he glanced around for possessions that he didn’t have. The taste of his own Joining suddenly on his lips. The sputtering flame of hope, spat back into life, like an ember that had never truly been extinguished. “I need to go.” 

“Where are you going?” Isabela demanded.

Alistair threw his hands up, hopefully hopeless and shrugged, ecstatic and probably insane, “somewhere I should have gone a long time back.” He had just enough coin left for a crossing over the Waking Sea, it wouldn’t be a pleasant crossing, but he’d endure it. Happily, for that little flicker of hope. For the chance to see her again, and maybe, to finally buy her that drink.

_ He was going after Bethany.  _

“Oi? What do you mean?” Isabela called, as he started to walk away. Feet quick with purpose. “What do you mean? Going where? Hey?” Then a little quieter she asked, “if you’re not going to drink this can I have it?” 

Alistair didn’t look back. 

  
  



	4. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany has survived her Joining, but can she find the home she wants with the Wardens?

That first night, after she thought she had died, she woke up. The Joining they called it. But it felt like dizziness, disorientation. Up didn’t feel like up, and down seemed to be everywhere. 

And Bethany was blind. 

Night blind, cave blind, deep blind - moving along at a snail pace. If the weariness in her bones hadn’t caused her to trip so often, her knees were bruised from not being able to see her hand stretched out in front of her. Although, most perculariliy she could feel everyone around her, with an awareness that resided in her mind like blinking away from a flame and keeping the residue of that image on her eyelids. 

It was a foggy, far away sensation that Stroud promised her would get stronger, with a tone of regret. A greater connection to her fellow Wardens, meant a greater connection to the Darkspawn. 

And as promised it wasn’t long before the dreams started. 

Bethany had never not been just a little bit afraid of her dreams, the threat of possession never something she could forget. And functioning always just a little sleep-deprived was a skill she’d learnt in her teenage years. So when the screaming, snarling images of darkspawn began to plague her nighttimes, it was almost too easy to ignore them. Darkspawn were not as subtle as demons and simply they didn’t terrify her because they were not trying to tempt her. 

Even if she woke up slick with sweat, gasping for breath with magelights already drawn into her palms to light up a tiny patch. A light in the darkness, sunshine under the bedrock.

Someone noticed the light, hard not to really she considered after. A flaxen haired man that had been on watch while the others had slept. He’d spotted the dim light. Silently she’d begged him not to speak of it, but her pleading eyes had met a hard expression. And the next morning Stroud had thrust a staff into her hands and asked if she knew how to use it. 

She did know how to use it. 

The staff was heavier than the one she had had in Kirkwall, with an intricate silverite metalwork crown piece and the whole staff was wrapped with fine leather to make it easier to grip. It was a staff in the same way as a hammer wielded by dwarves, or an axe by the Tal-Vashoth on the Wounded Coast, was a weapon not a tool - similarly she felt the prefix ‘war’ was appropriate. 

It was fortunate really, she could wield the ‘war-staff’ as the creatures from her nightmares crawled out of her mind and ran towards them, screeching and screaming, in the dark as they moved from one reality to the next. Shuffling footsteps that became shambling feet. Hearing them and sensing their tainted blood was enough to send manabolt after manabolt at her foes, picking them off from a relatively safe position at the rear of the group. 

It reminded her of Kirkwall. And of battles fought on the Wounded Coast with the sun hidden behind grey clouds, her friends close and the taste of salt on her tongue. Now she only tasted the slightly sulphuric remains of her spellwork, where it lingered malodorously as a miasma in the air. 

But it didn’t stop Bethany from grinning when Stroud clapped her on the back after it was done and thanked her for her efforts, grinning for the camoradory to be found in the strangest of traveling companions. 

“Amaranthine.” Stroud told her. As they stumbled from the Deep Roads into a cellar, complete with cobwebs in corners and storage barrels stacked up against the walls. Oppressive in the way that human structures were and the dwarven built tunnels were not. 

She noticed the smells of Ferelden first - of spring flowers that didn’t bloom so far north, and the snowmelt that churned up the loamy soil. She’d turned to Warden Stroud, confused and blinking - the stars were already so bright, she didn’t dare think what the daylight would bring. 

It wasn’t a Circle. That was something, she considered as she paced around the compound to wear in her new leather boots. 

It wasn’t a Circle, but she was still tucked within a thick curtain wall, with a Keep and a small Courtyard to explore. Bethany had been given a bed in a shared dormitory with a bedside cabinet to call her own. 

That and two pairs of leggings, six shirts, a jack, a tabard, matching boots and gloves, two belts and two weeks worth of smalls. She thought they would take her clothes from her, but they didn’t, no comment was made and Bethany didn’t ask. So she kept them tied into a bundle in the little cabinet by her bed in the shared dormitory, like some evidence of a past life hidden away. 

She’d been sure that Kirkwall was the end of the road. The last and final stop of her eventful zig-zaggity life. All those years running from the Blight and from the Circle - and she’d ended up here, somehow feeling like she was back at the start. 

Home was always just out of reach.

There was rather more free time to being a Warden than Bethany had expected, as she walked the Courtyard of the Keep again. The smells of the compound reminded her of Lothering, fresh bread, fresh muck, fresh sweat. All mixed in with the damp scent of drying laundry and the almost magical, sulphuric smell of metalworking. And the constant awareness of hundreds of other Wardens all buzzing around. 

After the sharp, harsh lines of Kirkwall, Vigil’s Keep felt comically soft, rounded. The pastel plaster was outlined with bowing wooden struts that gave the Keep more of an impression of a tavern than a castle. In a strange way, it reminded her of the Chantry in Lothering, the grandeur of the place was in its comfort, its coziness - not like Kirkwall with it’s maze of harsh streets and cruel metal street furniture. 

“Bethany?” The voice was from a memory of another time, from a marketplace in Hightown. Not here, just a memory that pushed against the corners of her mind. But Bethany smiled faintly, how peculiar to hear her name, not ‘recruit,’ not ‘Warden.’ She did turn, as though to prove to herself that there was no one there. 

There was a figure there, a merchant perhaps? Dressed for travelling, with a cloak around his broad shoulders. And his hair was shorter than the last time she’d seen him, had he cut it? It still stuck up at unruly angles, she blinked at him in surprise, “Alistair, what are you doing here?” Her voice was a little rough from disuse. It wasn’t like she’d spent any of her freetime chatting. Then as though to prove it wasn’t a dream she stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck, breathing hard, she muttered, cheek pressed against his chest. 

And she was very, very proud of herself for not sobbing into his shirt. 

They stood like that for a long moment, his hand nervously fluttering above the small of her back, before he gave into the sensation and very gently laid his hand against her. Alistair was also a little croaky when he spoke. “You’re alive?” 

She pulled back, feeling a little foolish for accosting him, but she couldn’t help it. “I am.” She dipped slightly, as though to nod with her whole body. “You have no idea how good it is to see a friendly face, I had no idea if any of my letters had gotten through. Do you know if my brother made it out? And Anders and Isabela?” 

Grimly Alistair nodded, “your brother is,” he drew out the ‘s’ as he considered a tactful way of putting it, “fine.” He ended up pulling a bit of a face at his own word choice, “alive and kicking. Kicking a lot, as are the others. But, Bethany, you look-” he broke off, looking at her incredulously. His hand waved out in front of him as though he was incapable of finishing the thought. 

“Like a Warden?” She suggested, feeling confident enough to tease him, just a little. At least she hoped that was what he saw and it wasn’t a comment on the dark rings under her eyes, the dryness of her hair or the chappedness of her lips.

“Yes.” He breathed heavily, taking in her uniform, before he grinned and laughed, “you look like a proper one. You’re all matching, not a floppy hat or dodgy chestplate in sight.” 

“Huh?” She glanced down at her Warden Uniform, wondering if she’d somehow put odd boots on or something. Unconsciously she put her hand to her hair, she was more than a little confused by his statement. 

He shook his head, and smiled warmly, “ignore me, it doesn’t matter.” Then his smile dropped as he glanced over to the Keep, “I should probably go and speak to the Arlessa.” He gave her a long look, and nodded as though he’d reached some kind of decision, though he still seemed like a man about to walk to the gallows. 

“Wait,” Bethany whispered completely baffled by the sudden change in tone. Anxiously, she glanced towards Vigil’s Keep. “Speak to the Arlessa? What do you mean?”

Alistair’s smile was rueful, but he addressed her boots when he told her. “The Wardens are a noble order, but it can be lonely if you have no one you trust.”

“You are not joining the Order for me.” She hissed, tasting the poison blood on her tongue from her own Joining like she would never be free of the taste. 

He plucked something out from underneath his collar, a little vial on a string, with a few drops of darkspawn blood that had long since dried into a browning smudge against the glass. “If you don’t want me a Warden, I’m afraid you’re years late.” 

Seeing the flaked blood in the vial, made her awake of the strumming underneath her stomach, like a drumming on her spine. A pinch of fear and a spark of knowing. There was a shape in him that she recognised that she would be able to find in the depths of the Roads. And with a dull ache that lived somewhere in her bones, she realised that his words hadn’t been a warning, but the hollow voice of experience. 

So she swallowed hard, not sure where this left the two of them. “You left the Wardens?” She concluded. 

“I guess I’m going to ask to come back.” He sighed, it was a heavy, resigned sort of sound. 

Bethany gave him a look up and down, before raising an eyebrow, “you came here for me?” 

Alistair opened his mouth, then frowned and made a worried sort of squeak, then his expression turned to one of absolute horror. He blushed so hard it reached the tips of his ears. His mouth moved a little comically, no words coming out and Bethany wondered if he had come down quite suddenly as very ill and he managed to mumble out, “well, I still owe you that drink.” 

“You followed me to Ferelden because you owed me a drink?” She laughed, she couldn’t help it. He was ridiculous and adorable. 

“Oh Maker. Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit creepy.” He glanced away, utterly mortified, “I just meant that when I left the Wardens, it was bad. For a long time, I didn’t ever think it could get better again. And then I met you, and I thought maybe things would get better.” He grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut completely, “that’s not less strange, sorry. I should go. Shouldn’t I?” 

“No,” Bethany hissed, reaching forward and grabbing one of his hands, “please don’t go, I know what you mean.” She stood close to him, her own head bowed, her own eyes closed. She’d been running for so long, carried like driftwood on the current searching for a place in the world, determined to carve one out where she landed. Then she peeked up at him, “it’s hope. I’m just sorry you had to come so far.” 

Either he was looking at her like he wanted to kiss her, since his gaze kept lingering on her lip, or he thought she’d gone completely mad and was watching to see what new insanity came dripping out her mouth. It must have been the first as he confessed, “I have never been a leader, but Bethany, I would follow you anywhere.” 

Bethany’s breath caught, her heart was fluttering under her ribs. “I’d better get some good maps,” she mumbled, her cheeks practically on fire.

“Yer,” he murmured in the same tone. Low and conspiratorial, as though they were planning some grand adventure together. He brushed a strand of hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. 

“Well?” She asked, gently pressing her palms against his chest. 

“Well.” He repeated, dipping his head. To kiss her gently on the nose.

Bethany smiled, pressed up onto her toes, to close the distance, to kiss him properly. Her hand curled around his shoulder under the layer of his travelling cloak, to keep herself steady, and pull him toward her. 

They pulled away, far too quickly. Alistair pulled back, his face flushed and he was looking very warm. “I should probably-“

“Do that again?” She interrupted boldly, a little giddy, a lot hopeful. There was probably some rule about Wardens kissing people in the Courtyard, but she didn’t very much care. Not when kissing him felt like a magelight in the Roads. Hope and home all rolled into one.

“Yes,” he agreed, cupping his fingers around her cheek and tilting her face to his. “Definitely.” 


	5. Timber from Burnt Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now for the thrilling conclusion. Alistair is back in Amaranthine, and the final hurdle to getting back in the Wardens is facing Kallie Tabris again. Will he be able to do it?

Alistair couldn’t quite believe that he was kissing Bethany. His hand fluttered uselessly at her back, as her tongue pressed against his lip and he started back. “I should probably…” he broke off, his mind blank and his mouth ineloquent. 

The wind had caught Bethany’s soft curls that framed her face, her rich honey brown eyes had caught the Winter’s sun, kept it and captured it. She looked up at him with those startling eyes, “do it again?” She asked, boldly, brightly. 

He pressed his palm against her cheek, to bring her face back to his, “yes, definitely,” he whispered against her lips. In all the possible scenarios constructed in his head on the fevered crossing from Kirkwall, he hadn’t let himself expect this. If he’d imagined it, he certainly hadn’t lingered on the thought for long during the tedious hours with little more to do that pace back and forth across the deck. Definitely not. 

Alistair had never quite understood why people around him had seemed to always be kissing. He’d obviously seen people in the shadowy corners of Redcliffe, more openly in the Hanged Man, and most notably he’d accidently caught Kallie Tabris with the man who’d tried to murder them all only three weeks before. 

And he just hadn’t quite understood what they’d found in each other’s mouths, until that was he was kissing Bethany. Not that he’d particularly want to kiss anyone else, but she really was… he struggled for words except ‘lovely.’ 

_She was lovely._

Bethany’s eyes were closed, lashes splayed across her cheeks as he pulled back a second time. The hand that had been against her face, he pressed against his mouth as though to hold her there in spite of their separation. With a look towards the Keep, he reluctantly stepped back. When she reached for him, he caught her hand, pressing another kiss against her knuckles. “There’s something I have to do.” 

She didn’t say another word, worried her lower lip with her teeth, but didn’t try to stop him. 

Alistair turned towards the timber-framed Keep, took a gulping breath. It was now or never, after all he’d come all of this way. Squaring his shoulders, he exhaled slowly, and found Bethany’s hand still tucked in his. When he looked at her, she gave him a silent reassuring smile and he realised that she didn’t know what he had done. His mood sunk quick and sure as a pebble thrown into a pond. 

_Would she still smile that way for a deserter?_

At least he would keep the memory of the way that she’d smiled at him, he’d keep that round his neck like the blood in the bottle from his Joining. 

Picking his way across the Courtyard with Bethany trailing a little behind, Alistair found a fond remembrance for the streets of Kirkwall, even if they had been covered in an inch of filth there was still stone underneath it all. Here his boots squelched through the mud, trying to drag him down. He was a little surprised by the time he got to the imposing iron-buckled door that he didn’t have cold feet - thanks to his new boots - but even if he wanted to leave, he didn’t have the coin for another crossing of the Waking Sea so it was rather a moot point. 

He stood for a moment just staring at the sworl of the wood grain in front of him, it wove over itself like a fingerprint. There was a patch of charing on the bottom corner, as though the Keep had been sieged recently, burnt like the bridge he'd burnt running away from the Wardens. But the door seemed study still, maybe Bethany had been right he had been chasing hope after all. Maybe there was some hope, some forgiveness to be found here. 

“You want to go in?” A man asked casually, leant up against the wall by the double doors, he’d been picking at his nail bed but was now looking at Alistair with an eyebrow raised sky-ward. He was an austere looking man, black hair scraped back into a stubby ponytail at the back of his head, and stubby attempt at facial hair on his chin, that Alistair strongly suspected the stranger thought was highly fashionable. It was the only reason he could think that the man wouldn’t just shave it off. 

“Blast,” he cursed under his breath, quiet enough that he hoped that Bethany wouldn’t hear. “Yes, I’d like to go in.” 

The heat of the hall hit Alistair hard, struck him right in the lungs. 

“I’m right behind you,” Bethany told him calmly, clearly more confident than he was. 

He nodded in thanks, and stamped twice on the top of the stone stair to shake off the mud from his boots. Across the main hall there were Wardens, handfuls in their blue and silver uniforms. A few maids and manservants busied around And Alistair heard Kallie Tabris before he saw her. 

The elven woman with grey-white hair that was cut severely into a harsh bob, was stood by a firepit in the centre of the room, laughing with a blonde Dalish woman. Her hand was on her hip, and from first glance her armour seemed fancier than Bethany’s own. She grinned, touched the other woman on the arm and turned, took a step, Kallie’s gaze caught on Alistair and she froze. Her smile dropped, turned into a glare that was a moment later replaced by a smirk. 

She strode towards him, demanding through clenched teeth, “do you want to explain to me what you think you’re doing in my Keep?” 

Alistair blanched, even taking a half-step back which caused him to knock his elbow into Bethany, “sorry,” he hissed without looking around, then he laughed a little nervously. “Hi Kallie.” 

“Don’t you ‘hi Kallie,’ me.” Kallie snapped back, her eyes too wide as she stared him down. 

Alistair faintly realised that Kallie was a good hand shorter than Bethany, which made her a good head and a half shorter than Alistair. He didn’t remember her being that slight, but it didn’t matter, he still wilted under her look. 

The Commander of the Grey pressed her hand against her forehead as though it pained her, and she sighed dramatically, “I hoped you would have known better than to come back to Ferelden. I’ve half a mind to have you executed.” 

Bethany made a small noise, a little like a squeak.

Which caused Kallie Tabris to notice the woman by his side, she gave the other Warden a quick examining glance and then her grey eyes flicked back to him, “answer the blighted question, Alistair. Make it good.”

“It is good,” he told her confidently, too confidently, “a very good reason.” Alistair grimaced, chuckled nervously, and he felt his face all screw up as he desperately tried to find the words. He’d practised this on the boat, walking back and forth. Countless articulated reasons why Kallie should allow him back to the Wardens. “I came to ask, well, no, I came to say. I’m sorry and I want to rejoin the Wardens.” He was hopeful, his fingers interlocking together in front of him like a pleading gesture. 

Kallie just stared at him, “you’re sorry? You want to come back?” The edge of a smile crept into her expression, until she was grinning, toothily at him. “Come back?” She laughed, her gaze flicking for a single moment to Bethany in understanding, “this had anything to do with our new recruit?” She clenched her fists and then her good humour was gone. Her expression became glacially cold. “You left me in the middle of a fucking blight, I had to fight the archdemon by myself, if Morrigan hadn’t-” she broke off too angry to continue. She bit back her fury, and enunciated carefully, “you left me to die.” 

Alistair stammered out, “well, you’d-”

“Not good enough,” Kallie cut across, “draw your sword.” 

“Wait, what?” Bethany interrupted. 

“Stay out of this Recruit,” Kallie snapped at her, before reaching for the hilt of her own weapon that was strapped to her back. She had a shortsword, curved slightly like a sickle and he remembered that she’d been gifted it by her father in Denerim. But as she unsheathed it, it crackled in the chilled air with ice rune. 

_That was new._

Alistair only had a cheap blade, picked up from a dodgy market in Lowtown. The seller hadn’t given him any details about its history, which had him convinced that it was stolen. It didn’t properly fit the sheath that had accompanied it, and the hilt often caught against his belt. Which it did as he tried to draw it out. Flinching his eyes closed as the sword caught, he was sure that Kallie Tabris would take her chance. It was over. 

But the moments slipped past and he peeked his eyes open. 

Unimpressed, Kallie waited, scowl edged in her face, like the black arrowhead tattoos that marred her cheeks. But she honourably waited until Alistair had finally gotten the cheap sword free. She tilted her head at him, almost curiously. Though the moment he had his sword into position, she didn’t waste another heartbeat before she launched into an attack, aiming straight for his face. 

Alistair countered with difficulty as he was shockingly out of practice, and he didn’t have a shield. He leant too far forward as he parried, and the shock of her blow rippled down his arm and he hissed echoing the ring of red steel against dull iron. 

As she smacked his sword away from the bind, Kallie didn’t take the advantage. She just stepped back with a sneer on her face, and shook her head. 

Gritting his teeth, he readjusted his grip on his blade, waiting for her next strike. He knew her, she was quick on her feet, and while her movements lacked embellishment, she could be pure fury when she wanted to be. It was best not to provoke Kallie Tabris more than he already had. 

Looking disappointed, she lunged forward. He stepped to counter, this time matching her, posture correct to keep the point of her sword from his face. Maker, he was already sweating. 

Kallie Tabris drew back, disengaging quickly, and snapping, “again.” 

It was a drill, he realised suddenly. She was testing him. And from the look on her face, he was failing. So he took the initiative and threw the point of his blade towards her first, she countered, then sidestepped, twisting her blade around his sword and levering it straight out from his hands. Where it went skidding across the floor towards the firepit in the centre of the room. 

Kallie huffed in approval and mouthing the word, ‘good,’ she swiped towards him mockingly. It was something he remembered that she used to do, called the resulting bruises badges of defeat. 

And he was ready for it when the flat of her blade struck against his shoulder. Except it didn’t hurt, looking down confused there was a thin barrier, watery and barely visible. He hadn’t felt the barrier form, wasn’t quite sure who had cast it. 

Kallie sheathed her blade over her shoulder, “you’re out of practise, your sword is shit.” She commented, but it was nothing that he didn’t already know. Kallie Tabris didn’t even wait for his answer as she rounded on Bethany, “nice spell work there, you must be the new girl that Stroud picked up?”

“Yes,” she replied, a little alarmed at suddenly being addressed. She glanced towards Alistair for a moment as though to check that he was alright. Bethany smiled pleasantly at Kallie and introduced herself. 

Kallie looked her up and down a bit distractedly, “any titles, secret pasts, family mysteries I should be aware of?” 

Bethany frowned, apparently baffled by the line of questioning, it took her a moment to stumble out, “my brother is a Kirkwellian Lord, if that’s what you’re asking?”

“So no titles yourself?” Kallie asked, eyes narrowed. 

“Can Wardens hold titles?” Bethany questioned back, looking more than a little out of her depth. 

Kallie gave her a saccharine smile, that was just a half inch too broad, too forced, “I have a few, but as Commander of the Grey, I should let you know that we don’t have space for another mage at present. Jader have been asking for one for ages, gather your things I’m assigning you there.” The whole through her smile didn’t drop and inch, her tone alarmingly friendly. 

“Orlais?” Bethany breathed. “Oh, but I thought-” she broke off. And Alistair watched as she deflated in front of him. How quick Bethany was to rail against her fate, find the futility in fighting and come to accept it. Her face turned towards the floor and her hand knotted tightly together. 

“That’s not fair Kallie,” Alistair told her hotly, angry on her behalf. Whatever he’d done, it was on him, not her. And he would have told the Commander of the Grey that if she hadn’t thrown her head back and laughed. 

“You’re hardly in a position to lecture anyone on the topic of fairness, are you?” Then she looked between the two of them and made a disgusted little snort, “right. I’m writing you up for being out of uniform, Warden.” 

“Huh?” He grunted, his head snapping to her surprised at the very sudden change of topic. He was back into the Wardens, it was what he’d wanted when he left Kirkwall. But, it was a cruel trick of fade, maybe this was Kallie’s revenge for him leaving her. It was what he deserved after all. He looked helplessly at Bethany, to be here, but knowing they’d be separating. 

_Well, this wasn’t what he wanted at all._

When he turned back to Kallie to protest, she rolled her gave him a little nod to know he was back in. “But,” she drew out slowly, “there was that small matter of treason. I can’t Conscript you. So it doesn’t matter what I want, and there isn’t a tasty nugs chance in Orzammar that Anora will let you stay in Ferelden. You can’t stay here. How does Orlais sound? Take her to Jader, maybe Clarel can think of something interesting to do with you two.” 

“I, um, yes.” Alistair agreed quickly, after his mind had caught up with exactly what Kallie had been planning. He should have remembered, she was always twenty steps ahead of him. Almost ashamed, he whispered, “thank you, Kallie.” 

“Work on your footwork,” Kallie Tabris snapped, tone turning cold. “Next time we cross blades, I won’t hold back.” 

Alistair looked at her for a long moment and feeling nostalgic said softly, “I missed you too.” 

Kallie snorted. Then gave him a very toothy, very friendly smile. Then dismissed him with a hand gesture and the words, “have a bath, get changed. Be gone by dawn.” 

“Finally got you that drink, though fair warning, I stole this from a dwarf,” Alistair told Bethany, as he set the amber bottle down between them. “So be assured it will be the worst thing that you’ve ever drunk.” 

He’d spotted Oghren by a fire, dozing with two bottles by the side of the comfy chair he’d fallen asleep in, while trying to find a room to change in. Taking advantage of the opportunity, and tip-toeing to ensure his old travelling companion wouldn’t awaken, he’d switched out the full bottle for a handful of coppers. 

“Is that a promise?” Bethany asked a little shyly, taking the offered bottle. She was sitting on a windowsill, overlooking the courtyard, with her legs hanging down. She put the bottle to her lips, the liquid barely hitting her tongue because she grimaced, “uggg.” 

“Worse than the Joining?” He laughed, but fidgeted with his collar. The Warden uniforms looked pretty, but they weren’t comfortable. He was grateful that he’d found the bottle before he’d put on the armour, he now clanged a little as he walked. 

“Here,” Bethany waved him over, redoing his collar to lie flat and adding a little shyly, “I thought the Commander was going to kill you.” 

Alistair put his hand over where her’s had been a moment before. A little cynically he said, before he could stop himself. “I wouldn’t blame her.” He sighed, leaning back against the sill that Bethany was sat on. They were close, her knee almost touching his hip. “Though, thank you, for the barrier.” 

He tried not to think about how close they were, so he took the bottle and sipped it. Suppressing a cough, he knew he’d drunk worse in the Hanged Man. He smiled with a fondness for that tavern in Kirkwall that he had never had while he was there, as he tried to picture how Corff would try to sell it, ‘fine Orzammar moss-wine, a thimble full only for the most discerning of palettes.’ 

“But, it was just a test?” She asked, although with enough assurance that it might as well have been a statement. Her honey-eyes bubbling with curiosity, as though he hadn’t bothered to let her in on an in-joke. “You knew she’d take you back?” 

“Kallie’s always had a fondness for desperate people.” Alistair said instead of a proper answer. “I suspected there was a chance she would let me back, everything is a roll of the dice with Kallie Tabris But, I didn’t think she’d send me to Orlais.” He turned to her suddenly, his face prickling with guilt as his guts churned, “oh Maker, I’m so sorry about that, you being sent to Orlais as well.” 

She smiled, and put a reassuring hand on his, brightly she joked, “it’s only Jader, is it really Orlais?” It was a border town, though technically Orlesian was still on the Ferelden side of the Frostbacks and shared its identity with both. Then her smile dropped for a moment and she looked out of the window, across the Courtyard a little wistfully, “every time I think I’m at the end of the road, it keeps going.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Bethany shook her head, and didn’t answer. She drew her eyes from the Courtyard to her lap where her hands were folded together on her lap, and she worried her fingers together in knots for a moment. “You don’t seem that surprised I’m a mage.”

He almost laughed in surprise, but caught himself before he did. “No, I knew. First night I met you, you zapped me.” He shrugged. 

“What?” Bethany gasped horrified. Before burying her head in her hands. “Oh no,” she was blushing so hard when she finally brought her hands away. She looked up at him sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.” 

Alistair shrugged, but he thought it was adorable, the way her wine-coloured blush stained her cheeks. 

But Bethany didn’t seem to think it was so easily brushed aside, she twisted in place, so now they were both facing each other. She leant forward towards him, challenging, incredulously, “and you didn’t even think of telling the Circle?” 

He grimaced like he’d swigged more of the frankly disgusting moss-wine. “Why’d I do that?” 

“For the two hundred gold reward? You wouldn’t have had to do all that running around, all those Chanter’s Board tasks.”

“I like doing the Chanter’s Board task,” he told her, a little put out. “Anyway, if I hadn’t been doing them, we wouldn’t have met a second time.” But her expression told him that it was enough, so he continued, taking care not to trip over his words. “Bethany, I wouldn’t have told the Circle. Not just about you, but anyone. Not even for twice that, or triple. It’s not worth it.” He told her a little darkly. 

Bethany didn’t say anything for a few moments, absorbing that. “Huh.” She finally said, extremely eloquently. Then the corner of her mouth twerked up in amusement, “what about for quadruple?” 

He grinned and pretended to ponder it, “eight hundred gold? Maybe? No, I wouldn’t, not even for that.”

“You’re a strange kind of man.” Bethany laughed. 

“Strange?” He repeated, finding her laughter infectious and he grinned in response. 

“I like it.” 

“Well, you’re stuck with me now.” Alistair said before realised he probably shouldn’t have.

But she didn’t seem phased, rather she grinned and slid her hands over his shoulder, pulling him down to kiss her again, breaking apart to murmur against his lips. “Oh, I don’t mind that.”

  
  



End file.
